Various - ... It Wasn't Really Me

Knekelhuis provide another scene survey of their own with this sequel to 2021's and felt like... compilation, again pulling together ten different acts from the contemporary underground. The artwork might imply a sympathetic aesthetic across the two collections, but the reality is a little more nuanced. If that first set drew together disparate voices from the world of DIY in a way that suggested a shared attitude rather than sound, then the principle focus of ...it wasn't really me is mostly soft-toned, ambient adjacent/minimal electronic music, the kind well defined by the standout inclusion of Civilistjavel!, whose contribution here is a particularly spartan refraction of Chain Reaction dub techno aesthetics.  It's an obvious highpoint, but it's not alone: there's also the immersive ambient techno of Purelink's gently paced opener or Salamanda's ethereal new age drift. Most surprising, though, is the change in pace that arrives with Spivak's album centrepoint, the lustrous slo-core dynamics of The Fucking Bed on the Floor. It's a genuine left turn, not least because of the presence of Spivak's vocal, a distinctly human and emotionally direct moment in a record of otherwise translucent, ambiguous pieces.